Not that you need an excuse to shop, but Mooshoes is celebrating its 10th anniversary this Saturday, Dec. 3, with a 15% discount on all in-store purchases, plus beverages and snacks from Blossom du Jour and Dun-Well Doughnuts.

On Wednesday, Dec. 7, head over to Pianos on the Lower East Side for some Freerange Nonfiction and listen while Hannah Tinti, Alison Espach and Alison Smith read from their animal-related books. The event’s $8 cover will directly benefit Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. For more information on this and other happenings in New York City, check out our Events Calendar.

In other atrocities, the USDA released its 2010 Dairy Checkoff Report, and the results are, well, atrocious: In 2009, $108 million was spent promoting milk, while $283 million was used to push dairy products like cheese. Is this really how we want our tax money spent?

On a lighter note: Sending out holiday cards? Be sure to order a book of PETA’s stamps featuring veggie celebs, now through January. The stamps, which can be purchased online, are available as of today and feature famous faces such as Woody Harrelson, Chrissie Hynde, Bob Barker and Morrissey, plus historical notables including da Vinci, Tolstoy and Pythagoras. Celebs aren’t always the most consistent carrot eaters, but they do help expose the mainstream to the cause.

For the young compassionate people in your life: The Vegetarian Resource Group is giving away two $5,000 college scholarships to vegetarian high schoolers graduating in the spring of 2012. If you know a senior who lives and promotes the veg lifestyle, make sure he or she applies by Feb. 20.

Same thing happened to Russell Brand after seeing the film. Meanwhile, over at Smith, students were in an uproar over rumors that the school was going completely vegetarian and locavore. Like that’s a bad thing?

“This is the book I wish I had had to give the meat-eaters in my life so they would understand me, and how they and I could have such a different perspective on the same issue.” This statement from Melanie Joy about her new book, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism, might seem a little forward, but she’s right.

Before you roll your eyes and shrug carnism off as another “ism,” let Melanie explain it to you, which she does so eloquently in the interview below.

I will tell you that almost ten years ago, while I was editor of Satya Magazine, Melanie Joy submitted an article introducing the concept of carnism. She was working on her Ph.D. in psychology at the time and it was a little earnest and ambitious. Still, the editorial staff was intrigued and persuaded by her argument and we published it. I really wasn’t sure where the idea would go from there. Back then, she was arguing to restructure language. Now she’s talking about transforming our culture. And, again, she’s right.

Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows is an elegantly-written description of why people eat meat. The argument is subtle but her writing is very approachable, with a friendly tone and low on the use of academic jargon. For me, it’s the most thought-provoking book about how animals are perceived culturally since The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol Adams (which had a big influence on me). I will leave it at that and let Melanie take it from here…

SV: Have you had any really surprising responses to your book so far? MJ: Yes. I’ve been on a couple of radio shows in the Southwest–”cattle country”–and the reception has been surprisingly positive. Carnists and hunters have called in saying they agree with the precedent of the book. They care about animals too and are against factory farms. A lot of mainstream meat-eating readers have responded positively.

Why DO we love dogs, eat pigs, and wear cows? Because the invisible system that I call “carnism” conditions us to love certain animals and eat others. Carnism teaches us not to feel when it comes to the animals we consume. Our natural way of responding to other animals appears to be based on empathy. One way we can see that: meat-eating societies around the world eat only a handful of species and find the idea of eating others disgusting. This is because carnism blocks our awareness and empathy when it comes to the species we have deemed edible. Continue Reading…

Because besides being delicious and super fun, eating out can be wasteful and unhealthy and a big bad guy, Huffington Post ate in this week, and on Wednesday they ate vegan. Laura Beck of crying-funny blog Vegansaurus championed eating vegan and shared a recipe for pasta with chard and Field Roast sausage. Mmmmm yes!

VegNews is going to India, and so can you! For the low, low price of $1295 plus the cost of airfare you can join their freakin’ awesome 12-day vegan tour of the country with VegVoyages. Bon voyage, bitches!

If I said it once, I’ll say it a bazillion times: Vaute Couture coats are gorgeous and somehow even cheaper than they were last week as part of an end-of-season sale. Check. It. Out. (Thanks, Dan!)

Slate weighs in on that ridiculous “is your SUV more environmentally-friendly than your dog???” wanna-be controversy and comes down on the feed-your-pet-vegetarian side. Excellent.